money, and the terms of his bequest indicate that he was a lay brother of the convent of the Charterhouse, London, and of the fraternity of the sixty priests of London. To his friends Reginald Pecock, William Clewe, John Carpenter, bishop of Worcester [q. v.], and other ecclesiastics, he left most of his books, which included Richard de Bury's ‘Philobiblon’ and some of Aristotle's works translated into Latin. Of his landed property no account is extant, and no mention is made of it in the will that now survives. But he undoubtedly owned large estates in the city, and made a careful disposition of them. Stow states in his ‘Survey of London,’ p. 110, that Carpenter ‘gave tenements to the citye for the finding and bringing up of foure poor men's children with meat, drink, apparell, learning at the schooles in the universities, &c., until they be professed, and then others in their places for ever.’ This benefaction was duly executed by the corporation with little change for nearly four centuries. In the earliest extant book of the city accounts, dated 1633, a list of Carpenter's lands and tenements appointed for educational purposes is given, and the rental of the property then amounted to 49l. 13s. 4d., and the charges upon it to no more than 20l. 13s. 4d. In the course of the following century the discrepancy between the two sides of the account increased rapidly. In 1823 the charity commissioners pointed out that only a fraction of the proceeds of the benefaction was applied according to the testator's wishes; in 1827 the court of common council increased the sum to be applied to the education and maintenance of four poor boys, and in 1833 it was resolved to apply 900l. per annum from the Carpenter bequest to the foundation and endowment of a new school and to the establishment of eight Carpenter scholarships for the assistance of pupils at the school and universities. This school, called the City of London School, was erected on the site of Honey Lane Market, and opened in 1837; it was removed in 1883 to the Thames Embankment. A statue of Carpenter as the virtual founder was placed on the principal staircase in the old building, and has been removed to the new. Orations in Carpenter's honour are given by the boys on the annual speechdays.
[Thomas Brewer's Memoir of the Life and Times of John Carpenter (London, 1856) gives very full particulars. Carpenter's Liber Albus, edited by H. T. Riley (1859), forms the first volume of the Munimenta Gildhallæ Londoniensis in the Rolls Series Translations of the Norman French passages are given in the third volume of the Munimenta, together with a long letter by Carpenter (dated 20 Feb. 1432, and printed from Guildhall Letterbook K), describing Henry VI's entry into the city of London after his return from France.]
CARPENTER, JOHN (d. 1476), bishop of Worcester, born probably at Westbury-on-Trym, Gloucestershire, was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, and proceeded D.D. About 1420 he became master of St. Antony's Hospital and School in the city of London, and was granted on behalf of the hospital several royal manors, and in 1440 the benefice of St. Benet Fink. He became prebendary of Lincoln in 1426 and provost of Oriel College in 1428, holding the office conjointly with the mastership of St. Antony's Hospital. About 1436 he was rector of St. Mary Magdalen in Old Fish Street, London, and with great liberality repaired some almshouses belonging to the parish. In consideration of this generous act Carpenter's name ‘was to be inscribed on the altar in the church.’ He was chancellor of Oxford University in 1437. On 20 Dec. 1443 he was appointed bishop of Worcester by papal bull, in succession to Thomas Bourchier (1404?–1486) [q. v.], and was consecrated at Eton on 22 March 1443–4. Carpenter was throughout his life a munificent benefactor to the village of Westbury. He elaborately rebuilt and richly endowed the college of priests attached to the church there. William Canynges of Bristol [q. v.] became dean of the college in 1469. Carpenter resigned his see a few weeks before his death. He retired to Northwick, and died there in 1476. He was buried, as he had directed, in Westbury Church. Much of his property was left to establish exhibitions at Oriel College. He is said to have built the gatehouse at Hartlebury Castle, the official residence of the bishop of Worcester. Carpenter was the intimate friend, and was probably the kinsman, of John Carpenter, town clerk of London [q. v.], who bequeathed to him several books on his death in 1441.
[Godwin, De Præsul. (1743), p. 467; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. iii. 61; Newcourt's Diocese of London, i. 285, 299, 471; Thomas Brewer's Life of John Carpenter, town clerk of London. The John Carpenter who, according to Boase's Oxf. Univ. Register (i. 16), proceeded B.A. 28 Jan. 1451–2, and M.A. 4 Dec. 1455, cannot be identical with the bishop.]
CARPENTER, JOHN (d. 1621), divine, was born in Cornwall, it is believed at Launceston, and entered as a batler at Exeter College about 1570, but after a residence of four years left without taking a degree and became rector of Northleigh, near Honiton, in Devonshire. Here he continued throughout his life, and here he died in March 1620–
